A gastropodous theme for this week’s Prize puzzle from Brockwell.
We only detected the theme after completing the puzzle, so it certainly wasn’t necessary to see it in order to solve any of the clues, but the more I looked, the more snail references I found. Apart from SNAIL and L’ESCARGOT, we have GARLIC; RAMSHORN and POND can both describe types of snail, and MAIL can follow it. Snails produce SLIME and may contain a DART, and there is an American fish known as the snail DARTER; they have SHELLs and of course BRIAN from the Magic Roundabout was a snail. And they are commonly found in GARDENs. Finally, snail-RACING is, I believe, a sport, or at least an opportunity to place bets. Thanks to Balfour @2 in the comments for two more references; this is the Matisse collage.
Many thanks to Brockwell for a very satisfying challenge.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SPACESHIP |
Craft from Spain’s No.1 seed holding serve quietly (9)
|
| S(pain), ACE (serve) SH (quietly) all inside PIP (seed). | ||
| 6 |
Post left after a month in Paris (4)
|
|
| MAI (French for the month of May) L(eft). | ||
| 8 | RAM’S HORN |
‘Trumpet God’ Miles getting fleeced (4,4)
|
| RA (Egyptian god) M(iles) SHORN (fleeced). Chambers has this as a hyphenated phrase, except when it precedes the freshwater snail. | ||
| 9 | ECLAIR |
Fancy Middle-Eastern bread with cheese crust on the counter (6)
|
| CE (crust of CheesE), RIAL (money or bread in Iran and elsewhere) (both rev). | ||
| 10 | SLIMES |
Finish from Lionel Messi resolved matters? (6)
|
| *((lione)L MESSI). This sense of slime, meaning matter, was new to me but is confirmed by Chambers (and Timon knew it anyway). | ||
| 11 | BRIAN MAY |
Guitarist upset Mani with grating sound outside (5,3)
|
| *MANI inside BRAY (grating sound). | ||
| 12 | DIESEL |
European articles limiting sulphur in fuel (6)
|
| S(ulphur) inside DIE (German for “the”) and EL (Spanish for “the”). | ||
| 15 | GARDENIA |
Poor drainage for plant (8)
|
| *DRAINAGE. | ||
| 16 | MATISSES |
Crowds taking in revolutionary Italian paintings (8)
|
| TI (Italian, rev) inside MASSES (crowds). | ||
| 19 | DARTER |
Bird reflected style of jazz finales from Charlie Parker (6)
|
| TRAD (style of jazz, rev) (charli)E (parke)R. | ||
| 21 | HOTPLATE |
Warmer training inside for heptathlon (8)
|
| Anagram of the internal letters of hEPTATHLOn. | ||
| 22 | GARLIC |
Characters in council raging about constituent from Kyiv? (6)
|
| Hidden and reversed in “council raging”; an ingredient in the dish Chicken Kyiv. | ||
| 24 | RACING |
Sport newspaper covering action regularly (6)
|
| CIN (even-nunbered or regular letters in aCtIoN) inside RAG (newspaper). | ||
| 25 | LEAFIEST |
The French cycling holiday is most verdant (8)
|
| LE (French for “the”), FIESTA (holiday) with its last letter cycled to the front. | ||
| 26 | POND |
Pool competition’s ending in Hull (4)
|
| (competitio)N inside POD (hull, meaning to husk). | ||
| 27 | THYESTEAN |
Tahini oddly inspiring cool meal for cannibal (9)
|
| YES (cool, as in an informal assent) TEA (meal) all inside TH N (odd letters in TaHiNi). We had to look this one up: Thyestes is a figure from Greek myth who was made to eat his own sons. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SNAIL |
Attributes of Australian swimmer’s back crawl (5)
|
| Hidden and reversed in “Australian swimmer”. | ||
| 2 | ASSUMES |
Pretends Big Bird’s upset in bottom of Sesame Street? (7)
|
| EMU’S (a big bird’s) (rev) inside ASS (bottom, in American parlance, indicated by the reference to Sesame Street). | ||
| 3 | EYOTS |
Ultimately take ferry to visit Galapagos Islands (5)
|
| Last, or ultimate letters of “takE ferrY tO visiT galapagoS”. | ||
| 4 | HANDBAG |
Tips from heart-throb on silver purse from Kate Spade (7)
|
| H AND B (h and b are the tips of Heart-throB) on AG (silver). Kate Spade was an American fashion designer. | ||
| 5 | PREMIERED |
Prime Minister finally came round and gave first performance (9)
|
| PREMIER (Prime Minister) (cam)E (roun)D. | ||
| 6 | MELANGE |
Two girls in brief medley (7)
|
| MEL(anie) ANGE(la). | ||
| 7 | IMITATIVE |
Copying musical notes up (9)
|
| EVITA (musical), TI, MI (notes) (all rev). | ||
| 13 | INAMORATO |
Sweetheart enthusiastic about catching flipping bouquet (9)
|
| AROMA (bouquet, rev) inside INTO (enthusiastic about). Thanks to KVa @11 below for the correction. | ||
| 14 | LESCARGOT |
Grand National winner allowed to carry small load (9)
|
| S(mall) CARGO inside LET (allowed). Lescargot won the Grand National in 1975. | ||
| 17 | IMPLIED |
Suggested one politician didn’t tell the truth (7)
|
| I MP (one politician) LIED (didn’t tell the truth). Compare this clue from this Monday’s Times cryptic (No 29425): “Current legislator wasn’t honest, as suggested”. There is of course no suggestion of plagiarism, just a coincidence. For what it’s worth, I think Brockwell’s surface reads better. | ||
| 18 | SHELLEY |
Poet read out description of 1d? (7)
|
| Sounds like “shelly”. | ||
| 20 | RERAISE |
Romeo somehow easier to get erect again (7)
|
| R(omeo) *EASIER. | ||
| 22 | GLASS |
It’s clear material girl supports government (5)
|
| G(overnment) LASS (girl). | ||
| 23 | IBSEN |
Playwright sent up children’s author endlessly (5)
|
| NESBI(t) (children’s author, rev). |
Didn’t see the theme. I’ve never seen Charlie Parker associated with trad before. He was the original dirty bopper.
There is Henri MATISSE’s famous (at least I thought it was) collage, L’ESCARGOT, which hangs in the Tate Modern. When I spotted the theme, I wondered if Brockwell would fit it in, and I’m not sure I would have solved 16 across as easily without it. Also a GLASS SNAIL.
I saw the theme but couldn’t get RAMS HORN… Thanks Brockwell and bridgesong
Thanks bridgesong. An enjoyable test which needed rather more recourse to Google than I would have liked. Still, there is the bonus of furthering one’s education in this way. Slime meaning matter was new to me too but it couldn’t have been anything else. Toyed with ‘steamship’ and ‘slaveship’ for a while and never did account for Sesame Street.
Good fun and an amusing theme, though I don’t suppose I’m the only one who had to look up THYESTEAN once it emerged from the wordplay. 1975 is quite a while ago to remember a Grand National winner (I did), but he was famous in his day and being thematic helped. NHO Kate Spade either.
I believe EYOTS (sometimes AITS) are unique to the Thames – the best known is Chiswick Eyot which is a landmark on the Boat Race course.
Mel and Ange are obviously cousins of Pat and Ella…
I liked the crossword, although it took me a while to finish it. I thought the “inamorato” was very neat. This week, for the first time, I finished all Guardian cryptic crosswords. So, the start of 2026 is not too bad … OK, Trump is spoiling it a bit.
Can someone explain how ECLAIR means fancy?
gladys#5. 🙂
TacroCat#7. “Fancy” is a cake (which I’ve only learned from cryptics), cream-filled like an ECLAIR.
As paddymelon says @9, TacroCat. Google ‘fondant fancies’ and all will be made clear.
My faves: SPACESHIP, ECLAIR, LEAFIEST, HANDBAG and IMITATIVE.
INAMORATO (a minor omission in the blog)
enthusiastic about=INTO
Thanks Brockwell and bridgesong.
I spose if snake can be a verb why not snail, never seen it tho.
Enjoyable puzzle, ta B and b and T.
So the theme was snails? Of course it was, but I didn’t see it. There were a couple of Jazz references and I looked for more, but then forgot about a theme. It didn’t help that I only wrote SNAIL in right at the end when I finally saw it was there hidden in reverse – I’d not thought of that as a meaning of ‘attributes’. But it was an enjoyable puzzle: I liked SPACESHIP, ECLAIR (although it took me ages to work it out) and a number of others, including INAMORATO (having failed to get inamorata to work…). Thanks, Brockwell, thanks, bridgesong.
HOTPLATE was my LOI, took. me an age to work out what was going on there!
Snail racing will always make me think of this Guinness advert, shame about the quality, but a classic.
I also had SNAIL’S PACE using the “space” from 1a.
Thanks for the blog , very good set of clues , I totally missed the theme .
HOTPLATE is very clever and the American indication for ASSUMES is neat .
I remember Lescargot winning the Grand National , he stopped Red Rum getting three in a row .
Is Lionel Messi the Italian cousin of Mr Messy ?
Well done Frogman@6 and Gladys@5 ( you need to think up a clue ) .
Enjoyed this very much tho’ it took me a while.
Favourites included: BRIAN MAY (FOI), RAMS HORN, ECLAIR, DIESEL, MELANGE
And for once I saw the theme
Thanks Brockman and bridgesong
Thanks, bridgesong, and others for the explanation. Like many, I didn’t get RAMSHORN and I missed the theme, even though I should have linked SNAIL and LESCARGOT. Tks Paddymelon@9 for explaining ‘fancy’, and Antonknee@14 for the Guinness advert, new to me.
What a fun idea for a theme. Penny dropped with BRIAN MAY coming shortly after SNAIL, MAIL and SLIME. LESCARGOT one of my faves – I was not aware of the Grand National winner but nice to be reminded of the Soho restaurant.
Thanks both
What a delight! I especially liked the pun in 18d SHELLEY which is how I twigged that the overall thread must relate to gastropods. I agree with others that a bit of “looking up” was required, particularly to confirm the Grand National winner LESCARGOT at 14d, but also for a few other curly ones. Thanks to Brockwell for a well-executed “snail” theme and to bridgesong and other contributors who added more to the references I did spot. Thus the blog too was a source of learning for me, along with some great clueing in what was a very clever puzzle.
An enjoyable puzzle.
Nice to be reminded of Brian and the Magic Roundabout!
I found this quite hard and am grateful for this morning’s help with parsing several solutions. I’m not wild about ‘of Sesame Street’ or ‘from Kate Spade’ to indicate American words, but I loved SHELLEY.
Enjoyable puzzle which kept me occupied on and off during the week. Yes, I also liked SHELLEY, and I remember L’Escargot winning the Grand National. Disappointed that I forgot to look for the theme, amusing in retrospect, and obvious now that bridgesong and others have pointed it out to me. Needed a wordfinder to fill in the gaps for INAMORATO and THYESTEAN.
Well, I wondered why my BASS HORN didn’t parse! I vaguely remembered L’ESCARGOT winning the Grand National but I failed to notice the ‘snail’ connections. I liked the fancy ECLAIR, the IMITATIVE musical (Evita is very useful in crosswordland), and the INAMORATO with his bouquet.
Thanks Brockwell and bridgesong.
Have started to look out for Brockwell, who was new to me, after enjoying one of his excellent puzzles a few weeks ago. What made this so outstanding was the quality of the surfaces. Too many ticks to list them all. I thought this very (too?) accessible for a prize, THYESTEAN apart, but hugely enjoyable nevertheless. The fact that Parker wasn’t associated with trad is less important than the fact that he was ‘Bird’.
1d seems to equate SNAIL with ‘crawl’. I don’t see how this works. You can crawl or go at a snail’s pace, but the two words are not interchangeable.
Missed the theme of course but thoroughly enjoyed the entertaining, challenging but ultimately fair solve. Thanks to you, bridgesong, for your blog and enlightening me and many of us here on that theme which only adds to the admiration of an excellent prize puzzle and I regret not having taken a breath and looked
for it myself.
Thanks to Brockwell.
Also, belated welcome back to Roz with whom I agree with highlighting HOTPLATE as one of the top clues.
poc @26 I have frequently heard people say that their computer or the internet is ‘snailing’ meaning moving extremely slowly compared to normal. A quick check suggests that there is dictionary support for this.
Another, perhaps very tenuous, link to the theme may be LEAFiest, since leaves are certainly part of a snail’s diet.
I had PANS HORN, which accounted for the god, but not the Miles, and I was defeated by the nho THYESTEAN (would not have thought to equate ‘cool’ with ‘yes’, but the blog makes it clear).
I liked BRIAN MAY for the tribute to Mani, bass guitarist with the Stone Roses and Primal Scream who died at the end of last year.
Thanks to Brockwell and bridgesong.
After solving the “inamorato” clue I realised why one of the Dijon mustard brands (they also make other products) you find in France is called “Amora”. I had never given it any thought before, despite having known this brand all my life.
Thanks Brockwell and bridgesong. Unfinished in the SW corner. There is a tiny chance that I might have spotted the theme iff I had twigged LESCARGOT, but it was not to be!
An enjoyable challenge from Brockwell. LOI 21a HOTPLATE took a while. I was trying to insert PE = “training” before a flash of insight satisfyingly led to the solution
Some likes and learns: 15a GARDENIA/drainage was a great anagram. 25a LEAFIEST is a beautiful word, and nicely clued. 27a THYESTEAN was an nho, and required some DuckDuck research. 1d didn’t know SNAIL could be a verb. Nicely paired with 18d SHELLEY — very funny. 2d ASSUMES is clever, though I doubt they’d say “ass” on Sesame Street! 7d IMITATIVE great surface and wordplay. 17d IMPLIED — I think this is a classic, probably many examples! 22d GLASS “material girl”
poc@26 As I mentioned above, Chambers includes SNAIL as a verb: “to crawl; go very slowly”. That was a new one for me, too
Many thanks to bridgesong (& Timon), for the excellent blog and to everyone else for the comments. I am frequently at war with these pesky varmints, so it was nice to put them to some use. HNY to all. B
Thank you Ed@27 , I am surprised by the lack of praise for HOTPLATE .
I just re-home snails in our green bin which is always full of stuff for them to munch on , they then have an exciting journey to the big compost heaps and I do not feel guilty .
Rox @ 35. Maybe you should be feeling guilty about sending the snails to be executed cruelly. This is how they do it in Greater Manchester
“ The process involves shredding, heating to high temperatures (around 65-70°C) for sterilization, maturation, and screening to produce a high-quality, peat-free compost.”
A very entertaining puzzle from MAIL to DARTER via SNAI!, but, as usual, we missed the theme! I remembered RAM’S HORN from The Battle of Jericho and INAMORATO from Flanders and Swan’s The Hippopatamus (although that used the feminine A ending), but THYESTEAN was a nho.
Thanks to B and b.
Tedrick@36 , too sophisticated for us , lower population , we have large heaps called windrows that are turned regularly . All compost heaps get hot naturally in the middle , the snails can avoid this .
I failed to complete, with THYESTEAN unheard of and trickily clued. I got the ‘tahini’ bit, but even with the Y and S I couldn’t confidently put YES for ‘cool’. (Are some snails cannibalistic?)
Similarly, I didn’t write in SNAIL until I had seen SHELLEY, as I have never heard of it as a verb. (SHELLEY was very good, once the penny had dropped.) HOTPLATE is very clever, but only in retrospect as it was way over my head until the crossers suddenly made sense at last.
Thanks to Brockwell and Bridgesong (and Timon).
[PS There’s a steeplechase run at Gowran Park in Ireland called the Thyestes Chase, named after a horse that was named after the mythical Greek. L’ESCARGOT didn’t win it, and as far as I can see from the list of winners since 1960, despite this being seen as a stepping stone for future National horses, only two winners of the Thyestes have gone on to win the Grand National at Aintree: Hedgehunter and Numbersixvalverde, in 2004 and 2005 respectively.]
Tedrick 36:
[Yep. And it finishes the slugs too 😁]
DNF by a fair chalk – 3.5 clues not done, no matter how much I scratched my head (the 0.5 because I thought SLIMES but was unconvinced and didn’t bung it in), the others being ECLAIR, SNAIL and THYESTEAN. I thought my classical GK was fairly good, but…
Didn’t spot the theme, par for the course for me.
Ticks from me for HOTPLATE, INAMORATO, and BRIAN MAY (and his badger!); lots of other good stuff, of course.
A major tip of the proverbial hat to Antonknee@14 for the link to the Guinness ad, which brought hoots of laughter to the Sheepy kitchen table.
Thanks to B and also to B!
[Sammy Snail loved driving. He had a super fast car. He was really proud of it, so he had a big “S” painted on the bonnet and back for “Sammy”, and another big “S” painted on each side for “Snail”.
He’d zoom about all over the place in his car, and everywhere he went, everyone gasped with amazement and shouted –
“Wow ! Look at that “S” car go !” ]
Too late to comment but Flanders and Swan helped me with INAMORATO having got the initial letter thanks to hippos and garters. As ever theme passed me by but I enjoyed the tussle so thank you.